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Secure online voting

This is the subject of a new post on the nvotes blog, found here. Here’s the summary:

The term “secure voting” is generally thought to refer to cybersecurity and resistance to cyberattacks.

However, cybersecurity is a general property of hardware/software that does not reflect the specific requirements of voting as a political process. The secret ballot is an established and indispensable requirement for voting.

Secure voting systems must support privacy as well as integrity; these two requirements stand in opposition.

In a system supporting privacy, no one, not even system administrators or other privileged observers can violate the secret ballot.

In a system supporting end-to-end verifiability, voters can ensure that their vote was cast, recorded, and counted correctly.